Another forum I posted this question in found it was a bug with maxis-made sims (the male was a downtownie) trying for babies with elder females in cars. There was no pregnancy that developed, it just played the chimes. Weird.
I had a weird thing happen while this was installed:
I had a female Elder and an Adult male downtown on a date, and they got in her car, and the option popped up to Try to Have a Baby-- not Try For Baby, Try To Have A Baby, and it looked odd because the wording was different, I distinctly remember that. So I clicked it out of curiosity and I got baby music! But she never had a trimester or vomiting, and my other pregnant sim carried hers to term without any signs from her mother in law, so I let her get electrocuted as planned.
I have Nightlife and University, Squinge's rub own belly mod, the female-only breastfeeding mod, and twojeffs' age transition fix, going steady fix, higher odds of abduction, and triplets and quads random only mods..... and some other stuff that has nothing to do with reproducing. Any chance this could have conflicted with any of my other hacks?
EDIT: Another mod I looked at suggested it's a problem with teen WooHoo, which I apparently also have installed but forgot to write down on my big list-o-hacks. So I'll be going to the appropriate forum for that now.